Short gaining cycles while slow cutting?

As your goal is arbitrary, why not lift weights abs maintain a 250-500 cal deficit to minimize muscle loss?

What is your bodyfat now?

Short "bulks" are not really worthwhile as you can't get an meaningful amount of tissue in that kind of time period. Instead take diet breaks when you need them and cut down to your goal.

If your deficit is not ridiculous, you lift progressively and get adequate protein, you are unlikely to lose too much muscle.

trigden1991 wrote: »

What is your bodyfat now?

Short "bulks" are not really worthwhile as you can't get an meaningful amount of tissue in that kind of time period. Instead take diet breaks when you need them and cut down to your goal.

If your deficit is not ridiculous, you lift progressively and get adequate protein, you are unlikely to lose too much muscle.

This


If you're getting those body fat numbers from a home scale, they are inaccurate anyhow. And you're over thinking it.

ShayAllenHill wrote: »

I set an arbitrary goal to hit 13% bf in the "bod pod" air displacement machine.

Started two weeks ago at 185.6 / 21.4 with a 1k calorie deficit (2 lbs per week).

After two weeks, I'm about 4 lbs down at 182.2 / 20.5

That's almost a 1:1 lean-to-fat-loss ratio, so I've increased my calories to a 500 deficit, hoping for a much better ratio.

Even so, extrapolating this down to 13% doesn't look good. I've only got 145 lbs lean mass at 6'. I can live with that if I keep almost all of it. Relying on push-ups and kettlebells for strength through April (remodeling the house).

I'm considering some intermittent 500+ weeks to spare and maybe gain back a little lean mass. Any suggestions for timing of these mini "bulking" cycles?

I hate body fat measuring devices. They're not "accurate" in an individual sense,* and even the direction of progress that they imply (i.e. an increasing or decreasing bf%) can be misleading, particularly if you use BodPod#1 for your first measurement and BodPod#2 for the next. The direction of progress that you would get from a BodPod for the first measurement and your scales for the next would, in my opinion, be less than worthless. Even if you use the exact same device every time, they're influenced by things like when you last ate, your level of hydration and when you last trained, and can give the disheartening impression that you've lost LBM or gotten fatter when you haven't.

In my opinion, you will be a lot happier if you:
(a) follow common cutting advice (high protein intake, small deficit, heavy weights);
(b) are patient; and
(c) completely ignore those random number generators masquerading as science.

If you still want to use a body fat measuring device, be consistent with the device that you use, and never place any weight on any single estimate. 2 data points don't make a trend.

*They can accurately measure body fat for large sample sizes. This is because they'll overstate for some, understate for others, and it'll all average out over a large enough population.